Dies Irae

Paris, France 1890

The sunlight filtered through the dust curtains of the shabby room. Small bugs flew continuously in and out of the gaping whole covered with material that had dreams of being a window. A pile of empty liquor bottles adorned the dresser along with a few articles of once fine clothing. Dirt was layered on everything the light could touch. Various footprints were visible on the floor through the grime, and led toward a dilapidated bed in the center of the room.

The room was part of a boarding house in the worst part of town. In the narrow streets outside drunks were littered from last nights adventures and at least a few bodies of women dead or close to it from the same drunken adventures. These were a dangerous sort of people; they had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Now that the sun was fully risen shop keepers opened they doors and shooed away the people lying in from of their doors. Another day had begun in Paris, the city of love.

Back in the room overlooking this mess, the owner of the building was pounding on the door demanding overdue rent money and hollering threats if the money wasn't paid soon. In the rusty bed a man stirred, shaking the sleep from him he ascertained that the sun had risen and there was someone at his door. What had happened to him the night before or how he had successfully gotten back to his room last night was anybody's guess.

After a minute or so, he concluded that he was awake and sober enough to walk. Hestood up, grabbed a stained black cloak and walked to the door. He stopped before opening it long enough to swath the cloak around himself completely covering his face. He then cracked the door open just enough to see who was out there, not that he didn't already know by the voice bellowing out there.

"Hey, you got rent due a week ago, and I still don't got it. I need 20 francs from you."

With a swish the black specter turned, and with a quick search found 15 francs to placate the piggish man in his doorway. He shoved the money into the filthy mans hand and made to close the door. But a fat hand shot out to stop the action.

"Hey, this ain't enough, I'm gonna kick you out if you don't…"

The sentence was cut short by a thin piece of catgut artfully twisted around his neck. The last sound the man ever heard was the deadly whistle of that lasso wising through the air.

With a sigh Erik realized that he would now have to drag the enormous man inside, set up a plausible looking scene for alcohol poisoning. This done he gather up his few belongings and stepped out into the street, horrified to find so many people in and no shadows in to hide in. He swore quietly under his breath, pulled his cloak farther over his face and hurried down the street.

It had been a long nine years since….well since he had left the opera house. At first he had tried to travel and get away from Paris, he had traveled all over the world, but he always felt a pull to return to this God forsaken city. By the time had returned to it, he had wasted most of the money he had amassed during his time at the opera house. It had been a hard transition going from the best of everything to well where he was now. He did have more money then than he had now, but none of the decent places would take him now. It had been a interesting discovery he had made on his travels: if you have enough money people won't shun you. He certainly hadn't made any friends, but he had no reason to hide any longer. Except his own fear.

Then things had gotten really bad, once he didn't have enough money to live well, he stopped caring altogether. He stopped his love of opium and started to drink cheap liquor, it didn't matter as long as it had the same affect. He began drowning his sorrows, making them worse, dwelling on them, with was the most painful of all. Then he started killing again, he had stopped for a while, but the more desperate he got, the more he killed.

Oh, he begged for death to take him, he had said long ago that he would never commit suicide, a promise he was now loath to keep. He looked like he had been drug back from the gates of hell itself.

As he walked now, he contemplated his interesting habit of only killing men.

He continued on his way until he stepped on an old newspaper. For a moment he thought he had seen a picture of someone, but resolved to keep walking. He tried but he could not let it go, he turned back to take a closer look. It was her. His heart stopped instantly, for so long he had tried to push her completely out of his mind, to never think of her again, to not love her anymore, to dwell of the anger so much that he didn't feel the pain.

Despite it all he could not help noticing how beautiful she looked, but yet how different. She was thinner, and this sadness was cast over her features. Anger rose up in him, what right she have to be sad with her perfect husband and perfect life, when he was left with this. Then he read the headline:

Viscountess De Changy Dead

The Viscountess Christine De Changy died last evening in the Château de Changy. She is survived by her husband the Viscount. Her funeral service will be held in one week from today.

He couldn't breath; his breath just stopped his heart stopped by felt as if the entire world stopped spinning. Christine dead? How could that be? He would have felt it, but the papers said right here. How long, the newspaper was old. It was dated April 3, 1893. What was the date today, how long had she been dead and he didn't know it. I wasn't fair, it wasn't right. The hot tears were starting to sting his eyes as he glanced around anxiously looking for some sort of clue as to the date.

His breathing was ragged and he knew that soon he would not be able to walk anymore. He choked back sobs as he now ran for somewhere out of sight. He found a shady bar that had rooms for rent upstairs. He quickly slammed the 15 francs from earlier on the counter and demanded a room. Key and newspaper in hand he blindly made his way up the stairs opened the door and collapsed on the floor.

A giant painful sob ripped it way through his body and out of lips in the form of a name.

"Christine! Why!"

The sobs came so quickly and so furiously that he was hard pressed to breath. His energy spent his body and mind gave out and he knew no more.

Three days later.

He sat in his new room thinking he had discerned that the day was May 10; she had been dead for over a month. He had thought that he was dead before, it had been nothing compared to this. He had been lost without her, but now he was dead without her.

He began to sing, something he had not done for nine years. The Dies Irae, the opening to the requiem mass he had written long ago.

Its your choice Christine, the wedding mass or the requiem mass.

"Dies irae, dies irae, dies illa solvet saeclum in favilla……."

He murmured a soft prayer for her, something he could never do for himself.

"Ave Maria, mother of god, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen."